Lawn gardeners must repeatedly install and remove hoses which provide water to sprinklers, nozzles, and other water supply devices, such as lawn games. Often the connection between the water faucet bib is never completely tight, so that there occurs frequently leaks and the difficulties in irrigating with water.
Known wrench couplings cannot be used because the hose itself interferes with their use. The prior art of wrench couplings in general include U.S. Pat. No. 1,778,576 of Walker which describes a polygonal clamping element for work bench vises and U.S. Pat. No. 2,733,937 of Mowrer, which describes a polygonal wrench with a laterally extending handle which extends perpendicular to the axis of the polygonal socket.
French patent 2605-918A of Iwandza describes a hexagonal socket for a spanner wrench and German patent no. 2,554,315 of Gendrot describes a winged spanner wrench. None of these prior art devices can be used with hose couplings.
Moreover, it is known that water hose fittings are very difficult to manipulate manually with the fingers only, often requiring both manual dexterity and brute strength, in odd work places in tight spots close to the ground which the gardener may encounter. This is especially true for arthritic persons and senior citizens who prefer to actively engage in gardening.
A knurled coupling is a cylindrical coupling having an inside surface engagable with a faucet bib, and a round textured serrated outer edge, wherein the textured serrations provide a gripping surface. A polygonal coupling is a coupling having a polygonal outside surface with female threaded inside surface engagable with male threads of a faucet bib.
Efforts to ease the installation of garden hose couplings are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,058,031 of Magarian, which discloses a flexible wrench collar with laterally extending protrusions located equal distantly about the wrench collar. However, considerable manual force is needed, since only the users fingers engage the collar.
What is needed, and what is not shown in the prior art, is a wrench adapter for a garden hose which enables a whole hand to be used to tighten or untighten the garden hose faucet coupling. Such a device is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,367,925, dated Nov. 29, 1994, of the Applicant herein. However, Gasparre '925 is designed for polygonal shaped hose couplings with a hose extension provided therewith, not for circular, knurled hose couplings.